Badass Saudi woman beats up “virtue” cop
It’s rare when Ms. magazine and I see eye to eye, but I love the following story it just tweeted. And I have to say I also loved and borrowed from Ms.’s headline, sorry. From the Jerusalem Post, May 17…
It was a scene Saudi women’s rights activists have dreamt of for years.
When a Saudi religious policeman sauntered about an amusement park in the eastern Saudi Arabian city of Al-Mubarraz looking for unmarried couples illegally socializing, he probably wasn’t expecting much opposition.
But when he approached a young, 20-something couple meandering through the park together, he received an unprecedented whooping….
A member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Saudi religious police known locally as the Hai’a, asked the couple to confirm their identities and relationship to one another, as it is a crime in Saudi Arabia for unmarried men and women to mix.
For unknown reasons, the young man collapsed upon being questioned by the cop.
According to the Saudi daily Okaz, the woman then allegedly laid into the religious policeman, punching him repeatedly, and leaving him to be taken to the hospital with bruises across his body and face.
“To see resistance from a woman means a lot,” Wajiha Al-Huwaidar, a Saudi women’s rights activist, told The Media Line news agency. “People are fed up with these religious police, and now they have to pay the price for the humiliation they put people through for years and years. This is just the beginning and there will be more resistance.”
“The media and the Internet have given people a lot of power and the freedom to express their anger,” she said. “The Hai’a are like a militia, but now whenever they do something it’s all over the Internet. This gives them a horrible reputation and gives people power to react.”
Neither the religious police nor the Eastern Province police has made a statement on the incident, and both the names of the couple and the date of the incident have not been made public, but on Monday the incident was all over the Saudi media.
Should the woman be charged, she could face a lengthy prison term and lashings for assaulting a representative of a government institution.
Saudi law does not permit women to be in public spaces without a male guardian. Women are not allowed to drive, inherit, divorce or gain custody of children, and cannot socialize with unrelated men….
“There is some sort of change taking place,” Nadya Khalife, the Middle East women’s rights researcher for Human Rights Watch, told The Media Line. “There is clearly a shifting mentality regarding to the male guardianship law and similar issues. More women are speaking out, there are changes within the government, there is a mixed university, the king was photographed with women, they want to allow women to work in the courts and there are changes within the justice ministry. So you can witness some kind of change unfolding but it’s not quite clear what’s happening and it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight.”
[Photo via Ms. magazine with the caption: “A police officer warns women about their clothing in the author’s home country of Iran.”

And they say chivalry is dead.
Hahahaha…I love this!!! Good for her! She’s a hero in my book! I always advocate that victims stand up to the bully. That way they are no longer victims, whatever the outcome! :)
Don’t anyone tell me that the treatment of women in this manner is not a regious matter, because as you can see, the Wahabbi country of Saudi Arabia has frickin’ virtue police.
It’s a muslim thang…
And yet another “muslim” honor killing, this time in Sweden. This teenager’s father just couldn’t take it anymore. So he killed her with an ax.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/05/muslim-father-brutally-murders-his-16-year-old-daughter-in-muslim-honor-kiling.html
Let’s hope the Saudi woman who gave that virtue watchdog a lickin’ doesn’t end up like this poor teenager.
And in a related story of religious intolerance:
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news%2Flocal&id=7272424
Religious bigotry is everywhere – even in high school! :)
Did I get the story right? The young man acompanying the young woman suddenly collapsed when the cops approched them and the woman defended her man by beating up the cops?
Dang right, Chivalry is dead when it’s the women who fight back…
its not a muslim THANG all of the other arab ,muslim countries dont have those haiah things and we are not treated the same we can do whatever we want and we are independent who needs a man , and we are respescted in no way is saudia is saudia representing islam , i hate it there and i feel sorry for their girls they just make things up and say its in islam when its NOT
yeah girls fight harder show them who is in charge
RSD-
I really don’t believe chivalry is dead. I’ve seen so many examples of chivalry in my life. I just thought it was very enpowering and humorous that it was the lady in this case that did the defending.